The prior art has seen the development of wide range of apparatus for dispensing and selling ice. This has ranged from the early ice houses in which ice was cut from lakes or the like during winter and stored in insulated storage rooms to be sold later; through a variety of types of ice manufacturing and selling apparatuses and processes. Of the current ice manufacturing apparatus, these range from making large, 300 pound blocks of ice in brine at sub-freezing temperatures and thereafter crushing the ice and bagging it; to small ice making means that make the ice by freezing adjacent plates, tubes and the like and thereafter warming the ice bond to free the ice to fall into a storage bin. Ordinarily the central ice making plants for making large blocks of ice are permanent and are frequently antiquated. They are costly to operate and difficult to obtain loans because they cannot be moved once they are built. On the other hand, the small units frequently are unable to manufacture enough ice for a given community or the like. Consequently, there is demand for an intermediate type of ice plant able to produce enough ice for a given community or local, even though it may be less able to produce exceptionally large quantities of ice, as for icing box cars and the like. Such an intermediate ice plant should have the following desirable features:
1. The intermediate ice plant should be mounted on skids or the like so as to be portable and be moved to a new location in the event that the business decisions or predictions for a given local are proven inaccurate. PA0 2. The intermediate ice plant should automatically supply ice to a bagging machine operated by a single operator without requiring a plurality of employees; thereby keeping operational costs low. PA0 3. The intermediate ice plant should be able to deliver ice into a sub-freezing storage bin without having freeze-up of the conveyor conveying the ice into the bin. PA0 4. The intermediate ice plant should be able to move the stored ice into an ice bagging machine in a size suitable for bagging and automatically supply the ice on demand by the operator operating the bagging machine. PA0 a. ice making means for making ice: PA0 b. comminution means for reducing the ice to crushed ice size for bagging; PA0 c. refrigerated storage housing which is cooled below the freezing point of the ice, the refrigerated storage housing having a bin for storing the ice; PA0 d. first conveyor means for conveying the ice to the refrigerated storage housing, the conveyor including at least one screw conveyor having snow removal means disposed at a location therealong for removing snow; PA0 e. freeze-up prevention means disposed in communication with the conveyor means and adapted to prevent freezing up of the conveyor means at its entrance into the refrigerated storage housing; PA0 f. ice break up means for breaking up the stored ice for bagging; PA0 g. second conveyor means interiorly of the refrigerated storage housing for conveying the broken up ice to a bagging machine; PA0 h. control means operable automatically to supply ice, effect breaking up of the ice and convey the broken up ice to an ice bagging means responsive to needs for ice thereat; and PA0 i. ice bagging means, including the ice bagging machine in the refrigerated storage housing adapted for bagging ice responsive to an operator;
As will be apparent from a consideration of the foregoing, the prior art fails to supply these desirable features.